I was gormandizing the food on the dinner plate, oblivious of the ladies and the gentleman, patiently awaiting my audience. Most of my life I had taken them for granted; I saw no reason to mend my ways now. Besides, every time they had presented me with their affection,time, and effort, I have reciprocated by being well-mannered, obedient, and patient. So, our scores were even and there was no reason for more bartering, or so I had thought.
We were in a strange room. One could not definitively call it a dining room or a drawing room, or even a bedroom. Also, strange was the assortment of furniture of this room. True, I was sitting at the dining table. But the gentleman before me was sitting on a wooden frame easy-chair that had no symphony with the straight-back in which I sat. One of the ladies, a tiny one, sat at the far corner of a massive king-size bed. She was merrily knitting away from two woolen balls, the colours of which I could not distinguish. The other one, much larger than the little lady sat herself on a decrepit single-bed which could barely sustain her. I wished I could swap the two women to improve the geometric sanity of this room. Then there was a third one who sat far away in the darkest corner. She seemed oblivious of my presence. Even in the dark she was reading something through a thick black frame of spectacles. I had a feeling I had visited her before.
All the light in the room came from a single source. The glowing wick of an over-sized clumsy clay prodip that lay before me on the dining table. It seemed as if it's creator was a kindergarten kid who had been provided ample clay to play with.
A tad irritated as to why I was being subjected to such an interrogative atmosphere, I looked the gentleman in the eye and asked him "Is there something you want to ask me?". The hazel eyes glinted, and I could see the flickering flame of the lamp in them. He got up slowly, as if time had no value to him, walked up to my table, picked up the comb (till then I had no idea that a comb was lying there), and went back to his seat. Then he kept back-brushing his hair till I could see the regimental strands even from where I sat. This surely must be a drill to test my patience. I decided to play ball. Then, almost as I was starting to think that my question had got lost in the conundrum of this room, in came his reply, "Yes, why are you here?". Taken aback by the barefacedness of the question, and the paucity of an apt reply, my mouth stayed open for an inordinate amount of time.
The hilsa on the plate had been very palatable, the taste of it lingered at the tip of my tongue. However, the lips were going dry as my mouth stayed open. "I came to eat", i managed to say eventually. "Well then, eat well, dadubhai, and don't speak while you eat. The food might get stuck in your wind-pipe!". The retort was so definitive that for the next half hour, I kept eating what was on the plate. The luchi alur dom' the machher matha, the gaendal patar bata, et, al. Every time I ate something, one of the ladies would ask me how it was, and if I wanted more. Even if I did, I did not want to say so. I had a feeling this wasn't a "free lunch". Nothing in this world comes for free. Of that I was sure.
By now, my pupils had got attuned to the dancing flame, and could see things a little clearer. The little lady was smiling at me from the corner of the gargantuan bed. I wondered why she needed such a big bed. I was preparing myself to ask the next intelligent question that could avoid a riposte like the last one. The gentleman interrupted me, "It is time for me to go to bed", he said. Then got up from his easy-chair and walked silently to the massive bed. The little lady muttered something under her breadth that vaguely sounded like she disapproved of his abrupt disengagement from the ensuing conversation. Oblivious of the disapproval, the gentleman, now brought out an over-sized mosquito net out of nowhere, and fastidiously started hanging it around the bed. In no time, the netted cocoon was made ready. He crept in it, making sure to leave any lingering mosquito out of his den. Then he went to sleep, with the air of a man in complete authority even in slumber.
Strangely, the little lady was not complaining anymore. She was knitting away with the dexterity of a weaver bird. From where I sat, it looked like a red sweater with a yellow teddy bear on it. She held it up for me to see and asked,"How do you like it? It is for you !". The red sweater she held out at me would have been perfect for a three year old child. But at 29, I thought I was a little overgrown for it. I said, with an air of euphemistic pity that the youth reserves for the elderly, "It is very beautiful, didima; But, I think it is a little small for my size". The lady seemed hurt. She looked away and muttered, "But to me you will always remain a three year old toddling through the room".
Like a blinkered horse traversing a monotonous pathway, oblivious of the scenery around, the diurnal chores obfuscate the memories that accompany us all through life. They only rear in surrealistic moments like these; and when they do, they leave a gaping hole that I now felt inside me. I carefully took the sweater from her tender palms and held onto it.
I looked at the lady sitting in the small decrepit single-bed, anticipating her to be the next to say something. Instead, she just smiled at me through those benign eyes that were embedded between the chubby cheeks and a rotund forehead. A smile that demanded no reciprocation, attention, or conversation. A smile that emanated pure happiness. I remembered running through the corridor and up the steep stairs as a child to see that smile on mashidida's face. It was a distant moment that came before me, as real as the smile now was. My mouth opened to say something to her, but the moment had already passed and the words remained entrapped in the quagmire of my thoughts. The calmness in her face, and the constant heart-beat in my ear played together like a storm and it's eye. With bated breath I let the moment pass.
The elderly lady in the darkest corner of the room looked up from her newspaper. She voiced myriad concerns under a single breath. Some regarding my lack of diet, my slender physique, my thinning hairline et. al. My assurance did little to appease her that I was being well looked after. Walking upto her and touched her feet as has been customary from the old days i requested her permission to depart. She poked those slender finger through my thinning hair and in a voice strangely baritone for a woman she said "boro hao". Strange as the blessing may seem to an already 29 year old lad, I did not dispute the veracity of it. Today, I had learnt to remain silent and refrain from trying to measure the depths of unfathomable affection.
Eventually, i rose to beg my leave of the caucus. I picked up the comb that lay on the table. The red sweater wrapped tight around my arm. The smile from the adorable lady (still sitting cross-legged on her single-bed) to fill the gaping hole in me, and the blessing of "boro hao" from the one in the dark.
I turned around and kept walking as the morning sun broke through the blinds.
We were in a strange room. One could not definitively call it a dining room or a drawing room, or even a bedroom. Also, strange was the assortment of furniture of this room. True, I was sitting at the dining table. But the gentleman before me was sitting on a wooden frame easy-chair that had no symphony with the straight-back in which I sat. One of the ladies, a tiny one, sat at the far corner of a massive king-size bed. She was merrily knitting away from two woolen balls, the colours of which I could not distinguish. The other one, much larger than the little lady sat herself on a decrepit single-bed which could barely sustain her. I wished I could swap the two women to improve the geometric sanity of this room. Then there was a third one who sat far away in the darkest corner. She seemed oblivious of my presence. Even in the dark she was reading something through a thick black frame of spectacles. I had a feeling I had visited her before.
All the light in the room came from a single source. The glowing wick of an over-sized clumsy clay prodip that lay before me on the dining table. It seemed as if it's creator was a kindergarten kid who had been provided ample clay to play with.
A tad irritated as to why I was being subjected to such an interrogative atmosphere, I looked the gentleman in the eye and asked him "Is there something you want to ask me?". The hazel eyes glinted, and I could see the flickering flame of the lamp in them. He got up slowly, as if time had no value to him, walked up to my table, picked up the comb (till then I had no idea that a comb was lying there), and went back to his seat. Then he kept back-brushing his hair till I could see the regimental strands even from where I sat. This surely must be a drill to test my patience. I decided to play ball. Then, almost as I was starting to think that my question had got lost in the conundrum of this room, in came his reply, "Yes, why are you here?". Taken aback by the barefacedness of the question, and the paucity of an apt reply, my mouth stayed open for an inordinate amount of time.
The hilsa on the plate had been very palatable, the taste of it lingered at the tip of my tongue. However, the lips were going dry as my mouth stayed open. "I came to eat", i managed to say eventually. "Well then, eat well, dadubhai, and don't speak while you eat. The food might get stuck in your wind-pipe!". The retort was so definitive that for the next half hour, I kept eating what was on the plate. The luchi alur dom' the machher matha, the gaendal patar bata, et, al. Every time I ate something, one of the ladies would ask me how it was, and if I wanted more. Even if I did, I did not want to say so. I had a feeling this wasn't a "free lunch". Nothing in this world comes for free. Of that I was sure.
By now, my pupils had got attuned to the dancing flame, and could see things a little clearer. The little lady was smiling at me from the corner of the gargantuan bed. I wondered why she needed such a big bed. I was preparing myself to ask the next intelligent question that could avoid a riposte like the last one. The gentleman interrupted me, "It is time for me to go to bed", he said. Then got up from his easy-chair and walked silently to the massive bed. The little lady muttered something under her breadth that vaguely sounded like she disapproved of his abrupt disengagement from the ensuing conversation. Oblivious of the disapproval, the gentleman, now brought out an over-sized mosquito net out of nowhere, and fastidiously started hanging it around the bed. In no time, the netted cocoon was made ready. He crept in it, making sure to leave any lingering mosquito out of his den. Then he went to sleep, with the air of a man in complete authority even in slumber.
Strangely, the little lady was not complaining anymore. She was knitting away with the dexterity of a weaver bird. From where I sat, it looked like a red sweater with a yellow teddy bear on it. She held it up for me to see and asked,"How do you like it? It is for you !". The red sweater she held out at me would have been perfect for a three year old child. But at 29, I thought I was a little overgrown for it. I said, with an air of euphemistic pity that the youth reserves for the elderly, "It is very beautiful, didima; But, I think it is a little small for my size". The lady seemed hurt. She looked away and muttered, "But to me you will always remain a three year old toddling through the room".
Like a blinkered horse traversing a monotonous pathway, oblivious of the scenery around, the diurnal chores obfuscate the memories that accompany us all through life. They only rear in surrealistic moments like these; and when they do, they leave a gaping hole that I now felt inside me. I carefully took the sweater from her tender palms and held onto it.
I looked at the lady sitting in the small decrepit single-bed, anticipating her to be the next to say something. Instead, she just smiled at me through those benign eyes that were embedded between the chubby cheeks and a rotund forehead. A smile that demanded no reciprocation, attention, or conversation. A smile that emanated pure happiness. I remembered running through the corridor and up the steep stairs as a child to see that smile on mashidida's face. It was a distant moment that came before me, as real as the smile now was. My mouth opened to say something to her, but the moment had already passed and the words remained entrapped in the quagmire of my thoughts. The calmness in her face, and the constant heart-beat in my ear played together like a storm and it's eye. With bated breath I let the moment pass.
The elderly lady in the darkest corner of the room looked up from her newspaper. She voiced myriad concerns under a single breath. Some regarding my lack of diet, my slender physique, my thinning hairline et. al. My assurance did little to appease her that I was being well looked after. Walking upto her and touched her feet as has been customary from the old days i requested her permission to depart. She poked those slender finger through my thinning hair and in a voice strangely baritone for a woman she said "boro hao". Strange as the blessing may seem to an already 29 year old lad, I did not dispute the veracity of it. Today, I had learnt to remain silent and refrain from trying to measure the depths of unfathomable affection.
Eventually, i rose to beg my leave of the caucus. I picked up the comb that lay on the table. The red sweater wrapped tight around my arm. The smile from the adorable lady (still sitting cross-legged on her single-bed) to fill the gaping hole in me, and the blessing of "boro hao" from the one in the dark.
I turned around and kept walking as the morning sun broke through the blinds.
1 comment:
Wonderful;There you are in your own self...unfortunately so much of prodding,abusing and six months of time required to bring this 'piece'out of your pen.Certain
sense of 'values' are inborn and
some are being taught and learnt.
You are being endowed with both and
carry them along with you.
Keep on writing and keep the 'ink'
flowing,,,wishing all the best.
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